But, the more I think about the programme the more I think it was fundamentally a pro-trans piece with some GC stuff added in to count as balance. I'm just not sure it would have had the impact we'd hope for.
That was my impression too, Spartacus. I haven't seen the whole thing, but of the parts I saw, some I think were 'wins' for the feminist side, and some were incredibly frustrating: especially the way the panelists all seemed to be avoiding spelling out the main issue - how 'gender identity' legally and ontologically obliterates sex - and how severely the discussion was constrained by the compelled language ('trans women') and the dishonest framing of the TRAs.
The parts that I thought were the most positive were the girl guide bit (NW was particularly good here), and Emma's contribution: she managed to bring the focus back to the most important consideration re: women's refuges, which is the needs of the women they serve. That must be the primary consideration in policy making here: not 'balancing' the rights of abused women with the (pseudo) right of men to have their self-image as a woman validated. I wanted to scream when VD asked one of the TIMs to explain why Emma's comment about males not being female was 'offensive' to him. Why does no one care that the TIMs' arrogant dismissal of Emma's experience might be 'offensive' to her?
How about VD asking RR: 'The way Nicola articulated that, using women and trans women, is that ok?' Unthinking deference to men's supreme authority over reality in a nutshell. Men demand to be called 'trans women', and then we have to check with them if it's 'OK' for women to call them the bullshit word they made up for themselves and forced us to adopt. Will we ever see the day when a woman will be asked on TV if it's 'OK' for men to call themselves trans women?
This is what I mean when I say that the framing of the whole discussion (not just in this instance, but everywhere) is controlled by TRAs, right down to the nonsense idea that this is a 'clash of rights'. I don't know what it would take for women to go on the front foot in this supposed 'clash of rights', which is actually an all-out assault by men on women's sex-based protections and the meaning of 'woman' itself. All I know is, if we don't manage to change the narrative that has been established by the TRAs, we've lost. I don't understand why Sarah Ditum and Nicola Williams, who both have a very firm grasp of the issues and the stakes, feel they have to parrot the myths perpetrated by TRAs and capitulate to their framing so often: e.g, SD going on a rant about 'transphobia' and NW saying, astonishingly, 'Nobody wants to take rights away from anybody.' WTF. My jaw was on the floor at that. The whole reason this issue has blown up is because trans activists are running a sociopathic campaign to OBLITERATE women's rights.
Yes, Datun, you are right: it is easy for us to criticise from the comfort of our homes and our anonymity. SD and NW are both risking a lot, personally and professionally, by being willing to publicly challenge the trans agenda, and I feel like a hypocritical shit for criticising two women who have been so brave and who have put in so much brilliant work on this issue. NW particularly - Fair Play for Women is an outstanding resource. BUT. That's part of my frustration actually. Nicola Williams has spent (probably) hundreds of hours meticulously documenting the TRA assault on women's rights, spelling out just what the legal extinguishment of 'female' as a coherent category means for women and girls in all areas of life. She, more than anyone, understands the threat that the trans movement poses to women's rights. I therefore don't understand WHY, when given the opportunity to talk about it on TV, she would instead say soothingly, 'Nobody is trying to take rights away from anybody.'
Yes they are, Nicola! You know this better than anyone! Trans activists ARE trying to take away all of women's sex-based protections and rights - Fair Play for Women was set up to fight this!
I can only imagine that she came out with that line in defensiveness - to try to refute the idea that she was trying to take away rights from trans-identified men. Which just shows the power of the TRAs to control the narrative, reverse reality and put even very knowledgeable and articulate women on the back foot.
Why not go on the front foot and point out that self-id of legal sex is actually an extremist attack on women's rights, by making the definition of 'woman' meaningless? Why should women be defensive about our very reasonable need to have 'woman' mean something in law and policy, and waste our time trying to 'prove' that we aren't bigots for not capitulating to the mad idea that any man can become a woman on his say-so? We are not the extremists here. The men who are pressing for any man to be able to identify his way into vulnerable women's spaces are, and they need to be exposed as such, not pandered to. Would it be so hard to say plainly, 'Self-ID of legal sex is an extremist idea that is unworkable in law and policy, because it conflates the objective reality of sex with the subjective feeling of gender identity'?
Why were the two male TRAs on the panel not challenged about their complete lack of concern for the safety of the group they claim to 'identify' as? Why could no one say directly to them, 'What you are pushing for is completely unreasonable and shows a shocking lack of empathy for women?', thereby putting them on the back foot? Instead we had SD going out of her way to reinforce the myth that they are terribly oppressed and face the same risks from other men that women do.
Like, why talk about male sexual predators identifying their way into women's prisons, and then say the problem is that it makes 'women and trans women' unsafe in those prisons? Not only are men who identify as women not the targets of heterosexual male predators, they are sometimes the predators themselves. WHY would it be so hard, instead of talking about how 'trans women' are at risk from, er, 'trans women', to say that female prisoners have the human right to be housed separately from males, that this is the only sensible way to run a prison system, and if a particular population of male prisoners is at elevated risk, it is a problem for the male estate to solve? Why are women so timid about calling out this madness and misogyny for what it so plainly is? Why can't women's rights be asserted boldly and without qualification or apology?
And now having typed all that I feel incredibly bad for attacking SD and NW, both of whom I admire so much, and who are putting themselves on the line in ways that I'm not, and I almost want to delete this post. But I can't, because I can't shake the frustration at how completely the TRAs control the narrative of this debate, and how powerless women apparently are to change it. They sally forth confidently, telling bald-faced lie after bald-faced lie, claiming to be 'women' while not even pretending to give a fuck about women's lives or concerns, asserting men's right to redefine reality at will, and women are crouched in a corner begging 'please just allow us this little patch of ground', all the while protesting that we care - we really do! - about the suffering of the men who are doing this to us.